Chapter 26. Ethan
I'm in my office after dinner, finishing the leadership essay Griff assigned me.
Five thousand words, handwritten, on what it means to be a leader.
The irony isn't lost on me, writing about leadership while my hand still smells like Liam.
I'm on page seven, and my handwriting is getting worse because my brain keeps drifting back to this afternoon.
His laugh. The weight of him against my chest afterward.
I force myself to focus. Two more pages and I'm done.
The administration building is mostly empty at this hour, staff gone, lights dimmed in the hallways. I like it here at night. No one needing anything from me. The closest to freedom that I can get. I can stay until rec time is over, close to nine, so I have plenty of time.
I'm midsentence when I hear voices in the hallway.
Not unusual. Guards pass through, janitors, sometimes another leader with late paperwork. But something about the tone makes me stop writing. Voices, low and hushed.
I get up, move to the door, and crack it open an inch.
Shadow is standing in the hallway, maybe twenty feet away, near the door to one of the meeting rooms. Seth is with him, back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
"You think you can just decide when this is over?" Shadow says. He’s calm, a big smirk on his face. "You don't get to make that call. I decide when we're done. Not you."
Seth, so quiet I barely hear: "I don't want to do this anymore. Please."
"Please?" Shadow laughs. "After everything I've done for you? The grades I fixed? The reports I adjusted? You think any of that was free?"
My stomach drops. I don't move. Don't breathe.
"If you say a word to anyone, I'll make sure your file reflects exactly what kind of person you are. Unstable. Violent. Unfit for release. You understand what that means?"
Seth doesn't respond. Shadow steps closer to him, one hand on the wall beside Seth's head, leaning in. The posture of someone who owns someone.
"We're done when I say we're done."
Footsteps. Shadow pulls back and walks away toward the staff wing. Seth slides down the wall to the floor with a shaky exhale. He stays there, head in his hands.
I close my door. My heart hammers.
I sit back at my desk, but I can't write. My hand won't stop shaking. I stare at the half-finished sentence on the page, the words blurring.
I've been carrying this for months. This fear, this question: am I like Shadow? Every time I touched Liam. Am I doing the same thing? Is this what it looks like from the outside? A leader taking advantage of someone in his care?
But I just heard what that actually sounds like. The threats. ‘I decide when we're done.’
I have never said anything like that to Liam. Not once. Not close.
Liam isn't afraid of me. The thought almost makes me laugh.
Liam has never been afraid of me for a single second of his life.
Not even during the belting. He called me Daddy to my face before we'd even kissed to see if I'd flinch.
He told me to fuck off when I reported his eating disorder.
He flirted with Reed in front of me to make me jealous.
He smoked weed with Harry while I was supposedly keeping him in line.
He took a cold shower punishment meant for me and smiled about it.
I have a badge and a title. Liam does whatever he wants.
Shadow controls Seth's file, his grades, his future, his release date. I can't control what Liam eats for breakfast. I tried.
The relief hits so hard I have to put the pen down. I press my palms to my eyes and just breathe. I'm not Shadow. Not because I'm a better person, I don't know if I am, but because Liam would never let me be Shadow. The dynamic is different. It was always different. Liam isn't a victim.
I might actually be the one with less power in this relationship.
I'll talk to Griff in the morning. About Shadow. Tell him to check the cameras. There will be concrete proof. I'll tell him what I heard. I should have done it months ago. I was paralyzed because I thought reporting Shadow meant condemning myself. But I'm not Shadow, and Liam isn't Seth.
I finish the essay. It takes another hour, but I finish it. Then I lock up, walk back to the dorm before lights out, and slip inside.
The room is settling into its nighttime rhythms. Harry already facing the wall. Jack flipping through a comic, eyelids heavy. Miles staring at the ceiling. Liam is in his bunk, on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at nothing.
He sees me come in and his face changes. That shift from blank to warm that only happens for me melts this cold heart of mine.
I sit on his bed. The mattress dips. He shifts, making room. I lie down beside him, and he curls into me, forehead against my collarbone. Warm from the blanket.
"Hey," he murmurs.
"Hey," I say.
"You okay? You look weird."
"I'm good. Just thinking."
His fingers find the hem of my shirt, playing with it. We lie there for a while, quiet. The lights get automatically turned off. The others are drifting off. Jack's comic slides onto his chest as his breathing deepens.
"Tell me something I don't know about you," Liam whispers.
"Like what?"
"Anything. Something you like. Something stupid. I want to hear your voice."
Nobody asks me that. People ask about my record, my plans, my grades. Not what I like.
"I like chess," I say.
"Chess?" He lifts his head. "Like, the board game chess?"
"Yeah. I played a lot as a kid. My neighbor taught me. This old guy named Robert who lived across the hall. He was ranked, competed in tournaments. He'd play with me every afternoon after school. I got decent."
"Decent meaning you were probably really fucking good."
"I was alright. I liked the strategy. Thinking five moves ahead."
"Of course you'd like chess. That's the most you thing I've ever heard." He pokes my chest. "Control freak."
"Funny,” I say, chuckling. “It’s just about reading patterns before they happen.”
"That's literally what you do to me every day."
"Yes. But you're not hard to read."
"Rude." But he's grinning. "What else?"
"I like running. Not really the gym. That I do because I have no other choice. Run long distance. We can’t really do it here, nowhere to run."
"We’re going to run plenty when we leave, and not even from the police,” he jokes. I chuckle. “Keep going."
"I like architecture. Buildings. How things are designed, the angles, the structure, why a room feels a certain way.
I've spent three years studying every corner of this facility.
I know where every camera is, every blind spot, every door that sticks.
Not because I was planning an escape. I just notice how spaces work. "
"I just thought you were paranoid."
Now I laugh. "Your turn, baby."
"I love dogs," he says, immediately. "Before everything went to shit, I used to go to this shelter near my apartment, just because I had nowhere else to go. Every Saturday. I'd just sit in the kennels and let them climb all over me. I was really good with them."
"That makes complete sense."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. You’re a good boy. And you just have dog energy."
"I'm choosing to take that as a compliment," he laughs, cheek on my chest. "I also love horror movies. The really bad ones. The effects so cheap you can see the zipper on the monster costume. I used to watch them with my dad when he was sober enough. We'd eat popcorn and throw stuff at the screen."
"Your dad watched movies with you?"
"Sometimes. When he was good, he was really good. Made the best grilled cheese. Like, sooooo good. Just bread and cheese and butter, but somehow it tasted like a Michelin star restaurant."
"How do you know that? Have you ever been to a Michelin star restaurant?"
"I haven't. But I have a vivid imagination," he says, laughing. Cute boy. Then, he’s quiet for a second.
"I like skateboarding. Obviously. There was this half-pipe near the train tracks, and the trains would come by while you were mid-air.
The noise was so loud your whole body vibrated.
Best feeling ever. Well." Pause. "Second best.”
“What's the first?"
"You know what the first is."
I pull him closer.
"I also like drawing," he says. "Not just the stupid caricatures. I used to draw people the whole time I was forced to sit in class, and back home, when I had nowhere to go, I’d just sit and draw. I liked catching the expressions people make, it’s so funny."
"I didn't know that."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Daddy." He pokes my chest. "I'm a man of mystery."
"You're the least mysterious person I've ever met. You say everything that crosses your mind."
"Nobody suspects the loud kid, babe." He says, kidding as always, and yawns. I run my fingers through his hair. "What about music? What did you listen to before this place?"
"I don’t know. Jazz?"
Long silence. Then: "Of course you listen to freaking jazz. Of course. I tell you Red Hot Chili Peppers and you come back with jazz. We're from different planets."
"Maybe that's why it works."
He laughs. Soft, warm. His breathing starts to slow.
"Ethan?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're here with me. I couldn’t do this without you. I can’t imagine my life without you. My heart hurts just thinking about it.”
"Me too, baby," I say.
His breathing evens out, and he’s asleep in minutes, his body heavy against mine.
I stay awake a little longer. Thinking about chess and grilled cheese and dogs in shelters and a boy who draws strangers' faces on subways. How much of him I still don't know. How much time we have. The moon is visible through the window. Almost full. I think of Miles.
I close my eyes and fall asleep easy.